Tom Harris, also known as The Hill Country Gardener, is a Master Gardener certified by the State of Texas, a Master Pruner certified by the San Antonio Botanical Garden, and a founder and volunteer for the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas (GVST).

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Poinsettias

If you already have your poinsettia plants for Christmas, there is a really simple way to water them…ice cubes. If your plants are in one-gallon pots, just place 4-5 ice cubes in the pot every day. They’ll melt slowly and keep the plant watered and not make a mess under the pot. By the way, be sure to keep the plants out of a direct draft—either cold or hot.

Winter Pruning

I went to a pruning seminar at the San Antonio Botanical Garden a while back. It reminded me of a few things that I need to tell to you about. As you may remember, this is the ideal time to do your pruning. The trees that are supposed to go dormant have and the others are sort of in a state of suspended animation; that is, they’re still growing, but vewwy, vewwy, slowly. So, now is the perfect time to prune.

First you need to have a reason to prune. If you don’t, then don’t.

Then, remember the 3 Ds—dead, diseased and/or damaged. Remove these first because the bush or tree needs it for its health. All pruning is to be done just above (1/4”) a bud or branch. Remember that you’re pruning to improve the structure and/or strength of the tree or bush. If it’s a tree, you may be pruning to help the tree develop a central leader.

If you have a tree that has a v-shaped crotch near the top and the two branches are about equal in length, remove the smaller of the two so that the dominant one can take over. If you don’t remove it now, when the tree grows up, that crotch will be a weak point and one of these “blue northers” with winds up to 35-40 MPH might just split it in two. That’ll probably kill the tree.

Never cut more than 1/3 of the branches off a tree. The leaves on the branches are what feed the roots of the tree. If you remove more than 1/3 of them, you’re gonna curtail some root growth and may even damage the tree severely. Remember on large branches to use the three-cut method; first make a cut under the limb a few inches from the trunk, then cut the limb off about 5-6 inches on out on the limb, and them make the final cut at the collar at the base of the branch.

Remember, too, that making a tree or bush look just right sometimes takes more than one year. But remove more than 25 percent of the canopy of a bush or tree in any one year.
To make a tree or bush shorter, cut out some of the large branches down to the middle of the plant and leave the others alone. Next year, do it again until the plant is the size you want it to be.

To make a tree or bush thicker, prune the tips of the branches. Each cut will produce 2-4 new branches thus making the plant bushier.

December Gardening

The kind of weather this past week really puts gardeners to the test. The “wimpy” types usually just hang it up and become couch potatoes…they probably aren’t that serious about it, anyway. The rest of us just recognize this time as that opportune-time when we do all the maintenance required to continue to be happy gardeners and/or catch up on the reading the gardening magazines, books and catalogues.

For example, if you haven’t cleaned out those beds from all the stuff that froze last week, now is the time to “git ‘er done.”

But be sure to dress for the weather; that is, dress in layers so that you can peel them off as the temperature and your efforts warrant. Clean out all the dead plant tops and put it all in the compost pile or bin. Put down mulch to protect the roots, conserve moisture, prevent weeds from germinating and conserve heat.

Remember also, that it’s the soil heat that keeps plants from freezing and plants in pots tend to suffer the most from hard freezes because the roots in the pot are exposed to the cold air.

Merry Christmas

Here’s hoping you and yours have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and that you remember the reason for the season. (Hint: it is NOT Santa Claus.)

Send your comments and/or questions to gardener@gvtc.com or see the website at www.thehillcountrygardener.com.